Study: Microplastics In Southcentral Waters

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Created on Friday, 26 January 2024 15:42

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By YERETH ROSEN
Alaska Beacon
Small bits of plastic are ubiquitous in saltwater and freshwater bodies in Southcentral Alaska and found even in some tap water, a new report says.
The report shows that all of the samples taken last summer from 39 Southcentral water sources – ranging from lake and river sites in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in the north to the waters off the southern coast of the Kenai Peninsula in the south – held tiny bits of plastic fiber. Additionally, about a third had bits of plastic film, which generally come from bags and packaging, and about a fifth had micro fragments, which are tiny bits broken off from harder plastics of plastic feedstock.

Joi Gross, a fellowship intern with Alaska Sea Grant, collects a water sample last summer from Anchorage’s Campbell Creek to test it for microplastic contents. (Photo provided by Dyani Chapman/Alaska Environment Research and Policy Center)

Dyani Chapman, who led the project, said she and report coauthor Joi Gross expected to find widespread presence of microplastics, but that the results were disheartening. They had expected to find at least a few fully clean three-liter samples, she said.
“As we progressed, every single sample was positive,” she said. “I think that 100% number surprised me.”
Chapman is director of the Alaska Environment and Research Policy Center, the state affiliate of Environment America, a national environmental and science organization. Gross worked on the project as a community engagement intern with the Alaska Sea Grant program.
Microplastics, which are bits of plastic no bigger than 5 millimeters long, and even tinier nanoplastics, which can be seen only under microscopes, have been found all over the world. Sites where they have been discovered include remote places like the waters of the High Arctic, in the snows and rivers of the Himalayas and in the Mariana Trench, the world’s deepest ocean area.
Within Alaska, they have been found in rain in Southeast, the bodies of seals in the Bering Strait region and in birds using waters off the most remote Aleutian Islands. Aside from plastic itself, the contaminants delivered through plastics have been tracked in bird bodies and even eggs in and around the Pribilof Islands.
Results of the Southcentral sampling program thus fit the global and statewide pattern.
The source of the plastics in Southcentral waters is yet to be determined, Chapman said. There was not a pattern distinguishing between urban sites, like those in the middle of Anchorage, and remote sites, like the Matanuska River. If plastics were more of local origin, it would be expected that urban sites would have heavier loads in their waters, but that wasn’t the case, Chapman said.
There is clearly some local input of plastics, she said. “We all see it, right? Walking around Anchorage, walking around anywhere in Alaska, you see plastic pollution on the ground,’ she said. The problem is obvious when the snow melts in spring and “and you see everything that picked up over the winter.”
But microplastics and nanoplastics can travel from faraway sites, carried by the wind, rain and snow, and that may be what is spreading plastic to the remote Alaska areas, she said.
The tap water that was tested – and that proved to hold microplastics – was from three different parts of Anchorage.
Wastewater plants generally do not have the technology to filter out the tiniest pieces of plastic, Chapman said.
But any consumer switch to bottled water to avoid plastic would be a mistake, she said. Other studies have shown that bottled water generally contains more plastic than tap water, she said.
A new study by Columbia University scientists supports that statement. It found that bottled water contained, on average, 240,000 plastic particles per liter.

Additionally, Chapman said, use of bottled water would simply add to the mounds of plastic in the environment.
The report released Thursday lists recommendations for government policies, business actions and even individual actions to address the problem in Southcentral Alaska. They generally focused on one basic goal.
“I think that the biggest thing that needs to happen is we need to stop adding more microplastics and plastic pollution generally to our environment,” Chapman said. “There’s the analogy that if your bathtub’s overflowing, the first thing you do is turn the water off and then you can figure out what to do next.”
One policy that could help stem the plastics flow would be to create some formal producer responsibility for proper design, management and disposal, thus shifting some of the burden away from the public and taxpayers, the report said. It recommends that both the Alaska Legislature and Congress pass bills requiring producers to take on some of these duties.
Another problem to be tackled, the report says, is what is known as “fast fashion,” the term used for cheap clothing that is mass-produced and often quickly discarded. The report recommends that retailers stop sending so much synthetic-containing clothing to landfills, the report said
On the user end, there are options for reducing the amount of plastic going into the oceans. Single-use plastics, which Chapman said are responsible for most of the pollution, can be phased out. That is happening in some places, including in U.S. national parks. The report also recommends that consumers should also opt for natural fibers rather than synthetics.
Commercial and sport fishing sectors, which are important in Alaska, should help address the problem by switching to more biodegradable equipment and through better management that reduces the volume of lost gear, the report said.
Chapman said Alaska fishing sectors have options to consider. “Really the fishing industry has an interest in figuring this out because microplastics and plastics are bad for fish, and things that are bad for fish are bad for the fishing industry,” she said.
Within Alaska, there have been some efforts to cut down on plastic use. Although there is no statewide regulation on the subject, several local governments have banned or limited the use of plastic bags.
Numerous local and regional projects in Alaska have worked to remove plastic debris from marine areas or prevent them from getting into the water in the first place. Some, like a cleanup program in the Pribilofs, have been funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and some, like an innovative project that recycles plastic waste into lumber products, have been funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.
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https://alaskabeacon.com/yereth-rosen

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